


Trying to Breathe

by sarahspoonhands



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: AU, BAMF Nancy Wheeler, Boys In Love, Byeler - Freeform, Gay Will Byers, Joyce and Karen are the best moms, M/M, Mike gets taken instead of Will, Ted is the worst, Will is a Mess, byler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 05:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12550440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahspoonhands/pseuds/sarahspoonhands
Summary: The Demogorgan takes Mike that night instead of Will, and Hawkins will never be the same again.





	Trying to Breathe

“The Demogorgan!” Mike said, slamming the figure down onto the board. Everyone groaned and Mike smiled inwardly. He loved making a great campaign. 

“We’re in deep shit,” Dustin said. 

“Will, your action,” said Mike.

“I don’t know,” Will said. Lucas suggest a fireball, but that was risky at best. Dustin thought that he should cast protection. Neither one of them was willing to compromise and Will was caught in the middle. The Demogorgan, however, would not wait for them to finish bickering. 

The monster advanced towards them as Mike’s voice grew more and more insistent. Lucas and Dustin began to yell at Will to make a move.

“Fireball!” Will said, throwing the dice. In his excitement, they skittered off of the table. The boys jumped up to find them. Mike, Lucas and Will crawled around on the floor while Dustin, who was apparently too upset by the whole ordeal to help, just keep repeating “oh my god”. 

“Mike,” his mom said, opening the door at the top of the stair. 

“Mom, we’re in the middle of a campaign,” Mike said, looking up from his search.

“You mean the end?” she said, pointing at her watch, “Fifteen after.” Mike felt the disappointment rising in his stomach. He rushed up the stairs after his mom.

“Mom, wait, just twenty more minutes,” he said, trying to bargain. He could finish up the campaign then, if the other boys could find the dice. 

“It’s a school night, Michael,” she said. No matter what he said, he couldn’t get her to budge. He might have even made it worse by mentioning that they had been playing for ten hours. His dad dad was useless (as always), agreeing with his mom without even listening to Mike.

“They’re the worst,” Mike grumbled when he was outside with Lucas and Will. 

“It’s okay Mike,” Will said, giving him a small smile. “We can just finish it next weekend, or maybe after school.”

Mike leaned back against his dad’s car and looked at his friend, forgetting his parents for a moment. Something had changed between them in the past few weeks. Not anything too drastic, but Mike was beginning to notice. They sat a little closer to each other, their smiles became a little more shy, they looked at each other a little bit longer than normal. There was a feeling that was beginning to grow in Mike’s chest that he had never felt before.

“Yeah, but it won’t be the same,” Lucas said, bringing Mike back to reality.

Dustin finally made his way outside and told them all that Mike’s sister was boring and horrible now, which Mike already knew. Lucas, Dustin and Will turned on the headlights on their bikes. Dustin was the first to leave, then Lucas. Will was last, as always, but Mike didn’t mind. He liked it that way.

“It was a seven,” Will said.

“Huh?” Mike turned toward him. 

“The role, it was a seven,” Will said. Mike furrowed his brows. “The Demogorgan, it got me.” Mike didn’t say anything as his friend said his goodbyes and pedaled off into the night. 

The lights of the garage flickered as Mike stood there alone, watching Will ride away. It sent a shiver up his spine. He turned them off and headed inside. 

Avoiding his parents, he went up to his room. He started his normal routine of getting ready for bed. He could hear Nancy talking on the phone to her friend in her room. He rolled his eyes as he walked to the bathroom. 

He wasn’t going to count Will’s role. Even though he was supposed to be an impartial dungeon master, he couldn’t bear the thought of Will being counted out of the rest of the campaign. Maybe he could even let Will take back his fireball and cast a protection spell instead. 

When he was in his pajamas, ready for bed, he called “good night” down the stairs to his parents.

“Michael, did you clean up the basement?” His mom asked.

Mike groaned. “No, Mom.”

“Well, you had better get down here and do that before you go to bed or your friends won’t be able to come over next Sunday, either.”

Mike dragged his feet down the stairs to the basement and began picking up after his party. The room was musty and smelled like feet, but Mike would have gladly stayed down here for another ten hours with his friends. His supercom crackled from the couch and Mike ran over to pick it up.

“Mike?” A soft voice said.

“Will?” Mike asked. He smiled a little.

“I think I left my vest there, over.”

Mike scanned the room and sure enough, Will’s orange and red vest was on the floor next to his chair. “I see it, over.”

“Okay, could you bring it to me tomorrow?” Will asked, “I’m sorry, over.”

“Of course, Will,” Mike said, “Did you get home alright? Over.” He sat on the couch and closed his eyes.

“Yeah, no one else is home yet though,” said Will, “I got Dustin’s X-Men 134, over.” Will sounded so excited. Mike bit his lip.

“How’d you do that? Over.” Mike said.

“I beat him in a race,” Will said. There was a hint of laughter in his voice. “Anyway, you should go to sleep Mike, over.”

Mike sighed. “I guess so. Goodnight, Will. I’ll see you tomorrow, over.”

“Goodnight, Mike,” Will said. There was a moment of silence before he said, “Over and out.”

Mike sighed again and set his supercom down. He finished cleaning up the basement and then headed upstairs with Will’s vest. The house was dark, his parents must have already gone to sleep. When he got to his room, he set the vest against his backpack so he wouldn’t forget it in the morning. 

Laying in bed in the dark, Mike couldn’t stop his brain from running like a hamster on a wheel. As usual, it was all about Will. Since when had he become so obsessed?

He was very aware of the fact that the vest was lying only a few feet away. He knew that Will would be cold tomorrow without it on his bike ride to school. Will would be cold most of the morning because of it too, Mike guessed, conjuring up images of the boy shivering in class. It would be much better if he could have it tonight. 

Mike sat up and began to change back into his regular clothes. The ride to Will’s house would be short, and then Will would be warm tomorrow. He would also get to see Will again, without Dustin and Lucas. His heart jumped a little at that, but he ignored it.

He padded his way down the stairs, gripping the vest with white knuckles. The front door closed quietly, and he was on his bike pedaling away from his house down the street, to Will. 

He was peddling fast in the cold Indiana night, vest draped over the handlebars, when his head light began to flicker. Mike felt that same shiver from before run up his spine. Then, he looked up and saw it. 

It was a man, but it wasn’t a man. His skin was a weird gray color, and he didn’t seem to have a face. Mike felt a surge of adrenaline as he swerved off the road and into the woods. He hit the ground hard when his bike did, but he got up and began to run blindly. 

He didn’t know these woods very well so he wasn’t sure where he was going, all he knew was that he had to get away from that thing. Every fiber of his being told him that the creature was bad news. Mike stopped to catch his breath, his back pressed against a tree. He needed to get to Will’s house and call the police or call his parents. He would be safer there, if only he had known where to go. 

He picked up a big stick from the ground and began to make a run for it. He heard a strange noise behind him that made the hair on his neck stand on end. This was the first time he had ever experienced fear like this. 

Mike turned around and swung blindly with his stick, but it didn’t hit anything. He scanned his eyes around the forest, looking for the creature, but it was nowhere to be found. He felt himself begin to breathe heavier than normal, his pulse was racing. 

To an outside observer, it would seem that Mike had just disappeared into thin air in that moment. He was in fact still standing in that very spot, though, on the other side of reality. 

…

“Mike, you need to get up, you’re going to be late for school,” Karen Wheeler yelled up the stairs for the second time that morning. “Did you see your brother get up?” She asked her daughter. Nancy shook her head, her mouth full of eggs. 

Karen sighed and made her way up the stairs. This was why she didn’t want him staying up so late for that silly game. 

She opened the door without knocking and found it empty. She felt her breath catch in her chest. The bathroom was empty too. She went back into his bedroom and put on a hand on the sheets. They were cold to the touch. Karen raced down the stairs to the basement. 

“Mike?” She called, checking every nook and cranny of the lowest story. 

“Mom,” Nancy said from the top of the stairs, “What’s going on?”

Karen looked back up at her daughter. “I can’t find Mike.”

“Well, he has to be somewhere,” said Nancy, “Maybe he had to be at school early?”

Karen nodded and walked back up the stairs as calmly as she could manage. She grabbed her purse and put Holly on her hip. 

“Nancy we need to go, now,” she said, her voice cracking. She felt like there was a lump in her throat so big that she could barely speak around it. 

“What’s going on?” Ted asked, hardly glancing up from his paper. Karen didn’t answer as she shut the door after Nancy. Hopefully it was nothing. She prayed that it was nothing, and that Mike would be at Hawkins Middle School, laughing with his friends. 

She pulled into the parking lot and got Holly out of her car seat. She walked quickly to the bike rack, not seeing Mike’s. It hadn’t been at the house either. In the front office, they said they hadn’t seen him this morning, and Mike didn’t come to the office when they called for him over the intercom. 

Karen turned to Nancy who had followed her in. She looked almost as panicked at Karen felt. “I need you to stay at home with Holly while I go to the police station.” She felt tears rising, but forced them down. She had to find her son.

Chief Hopper wasn’t there when she got to the station, but Flo told her she could wait in his office. She was there for over an hour before he got there. Her heart felt like it was going to explode when he typed “missing” on her son’s case file.

“Look, a boy his age, he’s probably just playing hookie, okay?” Hopper said, trying to calm her down.

“No, not Mike,” Karen said, standing up, “He loves school, he wouldn’t do that.” Her brain felt like it was on fire with how much she had been thinking, turning over thoughts in her brain of where Mike could be. Hopper tried to make her feel like it wasn’t a big deal, but she knew her son. She knew there was something horribly wrong. 

...

Will felt like something was wrong as soon as first period started without Mike. Maybe his friend was sick, or maybe he was late because he got in trouble with his mom again. When the principal interrupted their AV club meeting with the chief of police in tow, the bottom dropped out of his stomach. Dustin and Lucas talked over each other in the principal’s office while Will sat in between them, dumbfounded. 

“One at a time,” Chief Hopper said, clearly annoyed. “You,” he said, pointing at Will.

“We left his house at 8:15,” he said, “It was just like any normal Sunday night.”

“And you didn’t have any contact with him afterward?”

“No,” Dustin and Lucas said.

“Well,” Will started. This got the chief’s attention. “I talked to him over the supercom. I left my vest at his house and he told me he would bring it to me today at school.”

“The supercom?” Hopper asked.

“Yeah, it’s like a super powered walkie talkie,” Dustin said.

“Did he sound strange when you talked to him?” Hopper asked, “Anything out of the ordinary?”

“No,” Will said, he picked at his finger nail. The anxiety of the situation was beginning to be overwhelming. “We just talked for a few minutes and then said goodnight.”

“Well, this isn’t getting us anywhere,” Hopper said, rubbing his forehead. 

“Do you know where he could be?” Lucas asked.

“Maybe we could help look,” Dustin said. 

“No, after school you are all to go home,” the chief said. The boys stayed quiet. Will knew they weren’t going to do that. They had to find their dungeon master and bring him home. 

Mike meant more to Will than any of his other friends, though he would never admit that. Dustin and Lucas were cool, but Mike was different. He was kind, funny without being mean, and his soft eyes made Will feel something he had never felt toward another person. 

The thought of anything or anyone taking him away or hurting him made Will want to throw up. The rest of the school day he was silent as Dustin and Lucas talked incessantly about where he might be. They gave Will sad looks every once in awhile. 

When he was biking home on Mirkwood, he saw the the chief and some other officers standing a little ways off of the road. He hopped off his bike and ran over to where they were standing. Mike’s mom was with them too, her hand over her mouth. Will saw Mike’s bike laying down on the ground, forgotten. Why had he been all the way out here?

Then Will saw his red vest in the chief’s hands. His heart skipped a beat. He let out a small noise, and Hopper turned around to face him. 

“He must have been going to give you your vest back,” he said, more gently than earlier. 

“No,” Will said. He could feel the tears coming. “It’s all my fault. It’s my fault,” he said through sobs. Mike’s mom came up to him and wrapped him up in her arms. 

“It’s not your fault sweety,” she said, “We’ll find him. We’ll find him.”

…

Karen sat in Joyce Byers’ kitchen while she made them both some pasta. She couldn’t go home now, not now that she knew Mike was near. She had been searching the woods for hours, her voice hoarse from screaming Mike’s name. 

“I’m so scared, Joyce,” she said as the other woman set a plate down in front of her, “I just want him to come home.”

“I know,” she said, “We’ll find him. You’re doing so well. I don’t know what I would do if my Will went missing.”

She was barely holding it together. The past few months she had been growing farther and farther away from her kids and she felt like it was her fault that Mike was missing. Maybe if she had just payed more attention to him, let his friends stay a little longer, then Mike would have stayed in the house that night.

The phone in the hall began to ring. Karen ran over to it. Hopper had said he would call her here if he found anything new. 

“Hello?” She answered. All she could hear on the other side of the line was breathing. “Hopper?”

The longer she listened, the more familiar the breathing became. She remembered sleeping in Mike’s bed next to him when he was sick and the comfortable silence as she sat in the den with him while he read a book.

“Mike?” She gasped, “Mike, is that you?” Then the breathing was joined by the creaking voice of an animal Karen couldn’t recognize. 

“Where’s Mike?” She screamed, “Bring him back. Mike, Mike!” 

She felt a shock against her ear and dropped the phone. She fell to the floor, sobbing. She could hear Joyce trying to talk to whatever or whoever had called them.

“Who was it?” Joyce asked, kneeling down beside her.

“It was Mike,” Karen said through her sobs, “It was Mike, I could hear his breathing,”

…

Will sat with his back against the wall of his house as he waited for Dustin and Lucas to show up. As soon as he had stopped crying after finding the vest, he had comed them and told them that they had to go out to look for Mike. Now that he knew he was out there in the woods alone, he couldn’t wait another second to look for him. 

His friends pulled up to the back of his house and set their bikes down. A thunderclap sounded and Will shivered. He pulled up the hood of his rain coat. 

“Do you really think this is a good idea?” Dustin asked. 

“We have to find him,” Will said, “We can’t just leave him out there.”

“I’m just saying if the adults can’t find him, what makes you think we can?” 

Will whirled around. “Because we know him better than anyone else.”

His friends were silent for a while and they ventured deeper and deeper into the woods. The rain was pelting down now, soaking them all to the bone despite their rain coats. Their flashlights shone out into the night, bouncing off of trees and catching the streams of rain drops. Will thought it was a bit eerie.

They were all yelling for Mike once they were far enough away from Will’s house. Will heard his voice growing more and more desperate with each passing minute that they didn’t find him. 

“Will, maybe we should turn back,” Dustin said, “I don’t want to go missing either. I think Mike must have run into something bad.”

“If you want to be a baby, then go home already,” Lucas said, “We can’t abandon a party member.”

Will stopped dead in his tracks. He heard a rustling coming from somewhere up ahead. “Mike?” he whispered.

“Will, what’s going on?” Lucas asked. Will put a finger up to his lips. They all must have heard it now, it was growing louder. 

They all whirled around and their flash lights fell on someone. To Will’s disappointment, it wasn’t Mike. It was a girl with a shaved head, only wearing an oversized yellow shirt.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry that this chapter was mostly rehashing the first episode, but there is so much more to come, so stay tuned! I will be going into season two stuff too. Byler is beautiful, and that is all.


End file.
